Ideas Have Consequences

It is said in Military Intelligence that: only 5% of the people think; 15% think they think and 80% of the people never think! The 5% who think need books, seminars and documentation. The 15% who think they think need leaflets, newspaper articles and video documentaries. The 80% who never think only respond to TV soundbites, slogans on T-shirts, bumper stickers and posters. The five culture conveying institutions that need to be influenced are identified as: 1) educational institutions; 2) the entertainment industry; 3) the news media; 4) religious institutions; and 5) political institutions.

It is noteworthy that great revolutions such as the terrible bloodbath that was the French Revolution of 1789 began with intellectual books by Voltaire and Rousseau. Their revolutionary humanistic ideas were then spread throughout Paris by teachers, newspapers and leaflets. Finally Robespierre and the other revolutionaries whipped up the masses with parrot cries of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!” In the name of those noble sounding sentiments 40 000 heads were cut off by the guillotine and Europe was plunged into war.

Similarly, the American War of Independence was heavily influenced by books such as Lex Rex by Samuel Rutherford and Vindicae Contra Tyrannos (A Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants). Again, newspapers and leaflets and speakers carried it forward until the slogans: “No taxation without representation!” “Give me liberty or give me death!” and “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!” mobilised the masses to successfully win independence for the USA. -pasted with apologies to the source. I had previously saved this and can't recall the source.